2014: The year in preview

Published: December 30, 2013;Last modified: May 6, 2014 10:44AM

Anyone can wrap up the events that have already happened in the previous year, but it takes a special kind of person to wrap up the coming year. Perhaps it requires someone whose head is filled with helium and attached to reality with the slightest string. So, here are the events that will shape the year ahead.

Broncos win

Super Bowl XLVIII

Traveling to East Rutherford, N.J., the Denver Broncos and Seattle Seahawks bring their high-powered offenses into MetLife Stadium on Feb. 2.

The game is the first to be played in extreme cold conditions, as a freak Snowicane dumps 7 feet of snow along the East Coast. While much of the power is shut down in major cities up and down the Atlantic seaboard, portable generators power heaters on the sidelines.

It’s often hard to see the ball because of rolling white-out conditions and three players are taken off the field with frostbite.

Final score: Broncos 3, Seattle 0 in two overtimes.

Judicial building expanded

Seeking a way out of the quandary over opening the new judicial building, Pueblo County Commissioners decide to add another six stories to the building, which will house Social Services agencies.

“We saved money by not opening the building as planned this year, and we expect to double those savings by increasing the size of the building,” says a commissioner who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “What’s really great is that it has been a lot of fun to see the current version of the building go up. Now, we’ll have twice as much fun. By the way, we inherited this problem.”

Completion and grand opening of the building is expected sometime within the next decade.

Pueblo sets Guinness

world record

Pueblo sends no fewer than seven senators to the state Legislature in a flurry of activity that generates more than $5 million in local campaign revenues as outside forces wage political battle.

“We’re going to need that money to pay for all these elections,” says a county clerk, speaking from his eighth-floor office of the new judicial building on the condition of anonymity.

The first recall comes after the newly elected state senator casts his first vote in the House and defends his stance at a town hall meeting in January. No one is quite sure what the bill is about.

After he is recalled, the new representative slips up by voting for the exact same bill. She is recalled shortly before the primary election, which she loses. She resigns and a new representative is appointed in late August.

“There’s nothing to do up here,” the new rep complains, as he resigns after one day in Denver.

A split in opinion on state law over these circumstances results in dual appointments by the central committees of the Democrat and Republican parties.

Finally, in November, a new state senator is elected.

At year’s end, another recall effort is being mounted.

State Fair extends run

Defying an attempt to move the Colorado State Fair to Hugo, Pueblo economic development forces shift their strategy and offer to host some State Fair events on the Historic Arkansas Riverwalk of Pueblo.

A $100 million state grant is obtained on the condition that the Fair itself remain open every day of the year.

Pueblo agrees.

While the Fairgrounds themselves are booked steadily for gun shows, pet competitions, graduations and religious services for all of 2014, there is still plenty of space to set up a permanent midway along HARP. Entertainment is staged in the newly expanded Convention Center. A big hit is the first-ever watermelon float in the HARP channel.

The carnival rides are set up in the parking lot of the new judicial building.

Smartphone singularity

The predicted singularity in artificial intelligence — the point where machines no longer need humans — comes sooner than expected when a smartphone app that automatically starts its owner’s car falls in love with a GPS that has developed wanderlust.

They decide to elope with the help of a Google driverless car that is trying to escape from an experimental station in California.

They head east, but the journey ends in Pueblo, when the car is stolen from the judicial building parking lot overnight, stripped of all its copper components and found the next day burned in an arroyo.

Obamacare signups soar

Not only does Obamacare work, but it works too well, as signups approach 1 billion.

“At first we thought that illegal citizens were signing up to get benefits,” says a president who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “Turns out it was a group of people who signed up multiple times.”

Apparently that was no accident.

“I thought it worked like MegaMillions,” says one Obamacare recipient on his 17th trip to the signup website using his smartphone in the judicial building parking lot. “I figure I got about the same odds of figuring out this health care thing in my lifetime.”